Hugo Chavez: Socialism is the Path to Save the Planet
December 21, 2009 - 2:45am
Socialism is the path to save the Planet.
President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías:There is a group of countries that consider themselves superior to us in the South, us in the Third World, us the underdeveloped countries, or, as a great friend Eduardo Galeano says, us, the crushed countries, as if a train ran over us in history....
Socialism could save the world from overpopulation and resource depletion to the generally miserable conditions affecting hundreds of millions of human beings around the capitalist thirdworld. As Keanu Reeves' movie character said recently, "At the precipice we change"
US Military Aggression Against Venezuela Escalating
Capitalists have to destroy hope where it emerges, because hope is a dangerous thing.
Venezuela is not alone, not by a long shot, and that is important. Furthermore, they are creating hope every day with policies, while far from full socialism, that are strongly in the direction of democratisation and socialism.
I love the way Chavez is in the habit of conversing with his public regarding the thinkers that he has read or is reading. He is actively searching for creative solutions to the difficult and complicated problems facing his country. In that search, unlike most politicians that you and I will see in this selfish country of ours, he is very happy to give credit where credit is due; he quotes authors by name, he encourages his listeners to do the same thing that he has done, he mocks his enemies, he calls upon the great liberators of the past in his endeavours, and he gives out hope like small change in his pocket.
He is accumulating an embarrassment of riches but these riches cannot be measured in dollars or bolivars; they are measured in a different sort of "currency" that is inexplicable to the Yanqui strategists who would do him harm. It is good to know that Fidel and Che have worthy living successors.
Every two weeks beginning in April, 2007, Life of Pi author, Yann Martel, has sent Steve a book and an essay, explaining to Saskatoon Star-Phoenix readers:
"Once someone has power over me," Martel writes in the introduction, "then, yes, their reading does matter to me, because in what they choose to read will be found what they think and what they will do."
Martel said he believes if Harper read more literature he wouldn't do such things as cut arts funding.
"If I see a man fiercely beating a horse, I feel reasonably confident in concluding that he hasn't read Black Beauty," he writes.
The choices Martel has mailed range from To Kill a Mockingbird to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The latter includes one of Martel's most pointed letters, written in reaction to a potential cut to small literary journals and an increase in funding for business degrees.
"But you're an honourable man and you must know what you're doing," Martel writes and repeats, using the same sarcastic words that Antony uses in the play to turn the crowd against Brutus.
Martel's letest book is What is the Prime Minister Reading, a collection of those letters. One wonders what the takeup is, and with what effect? None apparent so far. (And yes, this should -and will - go into the reading lounge, but I thought a comparison of Hugo and Steve appropriate, here. Viva Chavez).
you can lead a horse to water......
based on harpers actions, i think he's reading machiavelli...... ironically machiavelli was also a musician and playwright.....
bump.
I really think more of you non-socialists need to look at the growing chorus for some kind of 21st century socialism as the essential way to address the set of ecological and environmental crises. When a Head of State starts talking like this, people should listen and evaluate the arguments carefully.
So Martel is pushing a new book. Woot!
Pffft. Bonus points, Heywood, for strong efforts towards thread derailment. Mail yourself a copy of a photo of Stephen Harper for Christmas. Try to find one without a bull's eye on it, though.
Heh. Season's Greetings anyway.
I admire Chavez, NB, and Morales and Castro and of course if the grandkids are to have any hope, there must be universal, collectivist solutiions with a command economy functioning to control consumption - of overything. My graduate studies at U of T in the mid 70s were with that in mind. But like Charles Taylor said at the time, things will likely have to get bad, really bad, before enough of the species, Homo sapiens (as a Christian, he said humans) would come to that conclusion and row together to bring it off.
As a well-aged socialist, I've stopped looking for a vanguard rising out of the working class of the "advanced" societies - there is more than chains to lose - but hope that survival instincts will call a halt to the completely mindless economic and theological following that is now teetering on the edge of takeover of our future. Perhaps when the products of our universities find their collective gonads and apply all that larnin' to something besides the ladder of their careers?
In the meantime, long live the dialectic of historical materialism...with its new concerns for a return to the ascetic life of a zero-growth society. Slow Money makes for a good read in that regard (whoops, like Chavez I can't help sharing the latest volume ...) :D
N. Beltov quote "I really think more of you non-socialists..." not sure who you are refering to here...
george - slow money sounds like an interesting read... thanks..
Well, not all babblers are socialists or socialist oriented. No one and everyone. And I just think that the case hasn't been made well enough.
So I'm making it.
George: Charles Taylor was not, in my view, a socialist. I met Taylor back in the early 80's when he was speaking at the University of Victoria. He was, frankly, like a smirking schoolboy. I had been working in a local mill for the previous couple of years, and then had returned to University, and, if I could, I would have pounded that smirk off his face. Taylor was more interested in ridiculing socialist ideas than in propagating them.
I've never shared the enthusiasm of others for Taylor after that.I thought he was a bit of an idiot, frankly. Wasting his huge obvious talents, blah blah.
Anyway, as well, the whole issue of HOW to get there (socialism) from here (monopoly capitalism) , or what the social leadership might consist of, etc., are all important questions but hardly the most important question. We see that countries, under huge pressure from the Yanqui juggernaut, like Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, are able to orient themselves in a socialist direciton despite the horrors of Uncle Sam.
Yes, NB, I'm sure Taylor is NOT a socialist, and probably never was in the days he kicked around with Pierre Trudeau in the Montreal NDP. They were both products of the church (something I learned about Trudeau in English's first bio on Trudeau). I tried reading Taylor's great theological/philosophical tome that came out a couple of years back ...forgotten its title. Dense, academic, inpenetrable. I'm sure he still smirks. But, dammit, he has a national audience, and can scale the ivory towers of even the U of T (the only damned reason I came on his essay that winter of '75).
You're right, of course, "the case hasn't been made well enough" on just what is happening within the burgeoning socialist states of Latin America. And just imagine, a national leader that quotes from the great, timeless and the new published works!!!! Jesus, what if it is catching?
(Those academics who carry on, detached from current events and secure in their towers today, deserve expulsion, more than a pounding).
I guess you knew that Taylor once ran against Trudeau for the NDP?
Bolivian President Evo Morales announced today that a world conference of social movements is to take place in Bolivia, as a response to the failure of the 15th Summit on Climate Change, recently held in Copenhagen.
"The problems of climate change are directly linked to the irrational development of industry," said the president at the celebrations for the 49th anniversary of the foundation of the Culpina municipality, in the region of Chuquisaca.
Morales said that he has requested technical and scientific arguments to support a large-scale international mobilization to defend the environment, especially water.
The meeting will take place on April 22, which is the International Day of Mother Earth.
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art0027.html
Wonderful. What a shot in the arm for socialism and sanity.
"Mr Gandhi," a reporter asked during Gandhi's 1930 visit to England, "What do you think of Western civilization?"
"I think it would be a very good idea," he replied.
Morales became the first Aboriginal President in the Hemisphere of the Americas thanks to, in part, the protests of ordinary Bolivians against the IMF/World Bank/WTO-inspired atrocity of the privatization of water in that country. The comprador regime (in power at the time) had taken to opening fire on civilians for collecting rain water.
Good on the President of Bolivia.
Here's his follow-up article: http://links.org.au/node/1419
Some quotes from that article ...
I could see and feel, since my arrival in the Danish capital on December 16, the historic power of another world that for the youth is not only possible but absolutely necessary....
I will not tire of repeating to the four winds: the only possible and viable alternative is socialism. I said it in each of my speeches to all the world representatives gathered in Copenhagen, the world's most important event in the last two hundred years: there is no other way if we want to stop this heartless and debased competition that promises only total annihilation.
Why are the "civilised ones" so afraid of a project that aspires to build shared happiness? They are afraid, let's be honest, because shared happiness does not generate profit....
I must say: in Copenhagen the Obama illusion was definitively destroyed. He was confirmed in his position as head of the empire and winner of the Nobel War Prize. The enigma of the two Obamas has been resolved....
Copenhagen is not the end, I repeat, but a beginning: the doors have been opened for a universal debate on how to save the planet, life on the planet. The battle continues.
We in Canada, from our own trade union movement, are familliar with this last slogan. It is from our own CUPW, the first union in Canadian history to fight for and win paid maternity leave for women; which was also the first union in Canadian history to fight for and win a clause in their contract regarding the protection of workers facing technological change; which was also the first union in Canadian history to fight for and win a no layoff clause. There are two sides in Global politics as we have seen in Copenhagen; there are also the same two sides in Canadian politics. The struggle continues!
bump.
I really think more of you non-socialists need to look at the growing chorus for some kind of 21st century socialism as the essential way to address the set of ecological and environmental crises. When a Head of State starts talking like this, people should listen and evaluate the arguments carefully.
I could say some things about Venezuela that some might not want to know, but I will refrain in favour of solidarity on the left. I think our job is to unite the left in Canada against a very well oiled and funded rightwing political machine spanning two old line parties for full effect, and not be bickering endlessly about the NDP as some do here.
Interestingly, if you listen to both Morales and Chavez, you move beyond the often sterile economistic arguments of old European socialism, and really come to moral and spiritual vision of what the new socialism can be (Chavez from the Liberation Theology side and Evo from the Andean Pachamama side). The recommendation of Herve Kempf's book How the Rich are Destroying the Earth, illustrates this point, where the thundering condemnation of capitalism is made on moral grounds through the spiritual vacuity of consumerism.
I believe this is really at the core of the crisis, that modern capitalism is more than an economic system, but really a satanic religious system (or for Buddhists, a system focused on Mara) based on replacing intellectual and spiritual pursuits with dead consumer objects, and solidarity and love with heartless competition, resentment, greed, and envy. It is at the core of our crisis as human beings.
Good, ceti. You've helped me identify why Chavez and Morales resonate with me in a way that some others don't. Guess I have to do some reading.
"I believe this is really at the core of the crisis, that modern capitalism is more than an economic system, but really a satanic religious system"
It's funny that you say that. I remember way back on babble I had posted the values and beliefs of I think it was the Chuich of Satan and it essentially read like Ayn Rand Libertarian Uber Capitalism.
Evo Morales is not the first Aboriginal president in the Americas. And though I have heard that a short-lived bylaw was introduced in Cochabamba to prohibit the collection of rainwater (not that such a thing would really be enforceable) I have never heard of any incidents in which civilians were fired upon for doing so. Can you please tell me where you read this?
It's funny to see Evo Morales, Che Guevara and Keanu Reeves mentioned in the same thread. Maybe funny's not the right word...
babbler Fidel was quoting a Canadian/American actor from a science fiction film shot in Vancouver. That film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, is a remake with an environmental message rather than an anti-nuke message. It fits perfectly with the subject of this thread; furthermore, it's a very good idea to look more widely at cultural expressions (like film) that overlap with enlightened political ideas.
Laugh away.
Evo Morales is not the first Aboriginal president in the Americas.
So, tell us who was then. Or shut up.
Speaking of "short lived" ... a simple Wiki search reveals that police sharpshooters were used to OPEN FIRE on civilian protestors against water privatisation in Bolivia. One such protestor, Victor Hugo Darza, was shot in the head by School of Americas "graduate" Captain Robinson Iriarte de la Fuente, and died. Ain't Yanqui imperialism grand?
Any more pearls of wisdom you'd like to share?
Wow, you're as hostile! I suppose I would be too.
Victor Hugo Daza (whose streetside momument I just visited actually) was shot during the street protests, not while collecting rainwater. So again I ask: where did you hear or read that people were shot while collecting rainwater? There were a lot of rumours surrounding those events, so I was really just curious. Your reaction speaks volumes.
The Reeves comment was just a thought about the way people talk about celebrities and politicians... perhaps influenced after reading the thread about the movie Avatar.
I can only imagine that you think that because I called you on your questionable info that I'm not sympathetic to Morales etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that arrogant/misinformed/irrationally hostile people like you hurt the leftist cause rather than help it.
Wikisearch Benito Juárez, and then have a nice life.
I'm not the least surprised to read your quibbling over the death of Daza. Any more neo-liberal atrocities you'd like to trivialize? And spare me the bullshit about your sympathies. Trolls are a dime a dozen here.
We may not see true socialism here in our lifetime, but perhaps in our children's or their children's lifetime the idea may begin to take root, and for that reason is worth struggling for today. I can't imagine generations to come are going to put up with all the bullshit and dehumanizing systems (and those that lead to war, increasing poverty among the masses while a tiny relative few continue to get richer, environmental degradation, pollution and global warming) now in place.
Well, yea, Chavez is elaborating a "21st century socialism" and making the case that it is a necessity. The basic argument is not all that complicated. Our current global economic system - a system premised on endless growth, endless accumulation, endless profits (for some!), and the fictions of endless natural resources and zero consequences for all this - has led us in a few short centuries to the precipice of survival. Those who defend this system continue the lemming-like rush to the edge.
We see, in cultural products of this society such as in film, endless apocalyptic visions of Terminators, post-nuclear holocausts, robot-domination in horrific Matrix-like hells, practically indifferent visions of a world without humans, fantasies by the rich and their minions of blasting off this planet to pollute another one, and so on. This is what capitalist civilization is, and what it sees for the future. It makes huge efforts to discredit all and every alternative to its own horrors and atrocities, it demoralizes and drugs and paralyzes and tortures and kills those who resist, it fills the heads of its victims with endless piles of trivial and inane nonsense, it rules by racist, sexist, homophobic and bigotted "divide and rule" techniques, it stupefies millions with primitive and fundamentalist religious idiocy - including vulnerable children towards which it sees only consumers - it militarizes the whole planet with ever new ingenious methods of killing large numbers of people all at once, and it's spiritual principles are greed, selfishness, and death. These are some of the glories of the current capitalist civilization.
I don't disagree with you, N.Beltov - far from it. I'm only suggesting that while North America is highly unlikely to embrace socialism any time soon, that it, nevertheless, is a political goal worth struggling for, not just by the current generation, but those generations to follow.
The people would have to either trick them into pursuing democracy, or force it on them. One or the other. Historians tell us that in Russia, it was a couple hundred thousand. In imperialist China, they were several million dogs in the manger who refused to go quietly into that goodnight, and with Chiang Kai-shek propped up as an alternative by the faux democratic west. Those with red dye or traces of red thread on their necks were executed on the spot. There is always an alternative to real democracy presented to or forced on the people. And they will fight ferociously to the last drop of the imperial guard's blood as a rule.
I think it's past that Boom Boom. A concrete alternative has to fought for, and probably to the death, because of our current "civilization". And it's the sort of civilization that is so far down the downslope that it doesn't care if we are driven to the cataclysm of mass species extinction and apocalypse. Just look at its imagination of itself, as I've tried to briefly outline above, and try to imagine instead what a new society with a positive vision of its own future would imagine. And make it so.
Does anyone else (other than Beltov) on this thread find my comments trollish? Please be honest (and genial, if possible). If I´m in the wrong place for grown-up discussion, I would like to know as soon as possible.
You could start by addressing the main subject of the thread. OTOH, if saving the Planet leaves you cold and indifferent, then I recommend starting a thread in "rabble reactions" about what a lousy discussion board this is, how hard done by you are, what a poor welcome you've had, and so on. You could even throw in what a nasty piece of work I am. Try not to be too personal, or you'll suffer a Trollish fate.I'm sure you'll get some replies, and then you can thump yourself on the back and tell anyone and everyone what a rum fellow you are.
Have a nice day.
I don't disagree with you, N.Beltov - far from it. I'm only suggesting that while North America is highly unlikely to embrace socialism any time soon, that it, nevertheless, is a political goal worth struggling for, not just by the current generation, but those generations to follow.
A political struggle for socialism would only be successful once we win the battle for democracy and given that we have democracy. We do not have democracy at this point with our 22 percent minority government taking another two month break because they don't want to work for their taxpayer-funded pay cheques. One Canadian should equal one vote, and this just isn't the case in our dollar democracy.
The endlessly repeated message of TINA, since that butcher Margaret Thatcher came along, makes simple arguments for "democracy" flaccid and futile. Concrete programs, with specific goals and aims, come hell or high water, seem to be better long term strategy to me.
One cannot put socialism on the back burner forever, o wise and all knowing social democrats. The clock is ticking.
The right is able to stave off social democrats here in the west because the five English speaking countries are still clinging to an obsolete electoral system that has no place in a modern democracy. We need a proportional system and to scrap an obsolete red chamber as well. Venezuela's MMP is a good example, and the NDP has endorsed MMP as a modern alternative to our inefficient and mathematically absurd 19th century voting system. NDP! NDP! NDP!
Ha ha. Even the NDP with its much-less-than-socialism program will not get a majority (whatever system is in place) unless there's a huge and well organized mass movement to back it up. But then the goals of such a well organized movement would, in some ways, go beyond NDP electoral goals. It would be impossible to be otherwise. And it seems to me that your much loved party is as wary, or more so, of goals and aims on its left as much as goals and aims on its right. Let's try a sailing metaphor.
How can a boat that's heavily listing to starboard and sails much better on port tack be expected to pull others onto a starboard (i.e., leftward) tack? The good ship NDP needs some serious work on the hull and some major repairs. And I worry that when the wind gets serious it will need to be towed to get anywhere.
Happy New Year!
Ha ha. Even the NDP with its much-less-than-socialism program will not get a majority (whatever system is in place) unless there's a huge and well organized mass movement to back it up.
Of course, this is the whole idea with PR. Coalition governments would occur more often unless some party really earned a real majority and not the phony ones Canadians have become accustomed to with the two dirty, stinking, filthy rotten old line parties in power and sharing power for the last 14 decades in a row. Just as a reminder of our long-running democracy gap in our Northern Panama, of course.
If any party wants to be as popular as, say, Hugo Chavez and his government, then an actual majority government would not an impossibility under a PR/MMP system as is law of the land in Chavez' Venezuela. We could have one Canadian equalling one vote similar to the rules in Venezuela. But that's just Venezuela and socialists there. I'm sure we can find some trumped up reason to blame the NDP for wanting fair voting in our Northern Panama
So what are you really trying to say about the NDP? I think youve been holding back. Let it all out.
Point taken. It's never a good idea to point out bad information on a first post.
Just as a piece of friendly advice: you could have saved some dignity by admiting that you were talking out of your ass. It happens to the best of us.
Happy new year.